S Korea gearing up for G-20 Summit

With only 50 days left for the G-20 Seoul Summit, Korea is making conscientious efforts to gather a consensus in putting development as one of the major topics for discussion.

The Seoul Summit agenda can be broken into two categories. The first category consists of the agenda items to be followed up as agreed in the previous summits, and the second will focus on new items that South Korea has persuaded its G-20 counterparts to take on board.

This includes IMF and financial regulatory reforms and the "Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth."

The US and European countries dominate the IMF, created in 1944 to promote international monetary cooperation and exchange rate stability. The main job of IMF is to raise a pool of emergency funds from members and lend them when their economies are in trouble.

"The Framework is a macro-economic coordination mechanism for the G20 countries, and it deals with bringing together macro-economic policies of individual countries under the assumption that coordinating our policies can produce a better, more ambitious outcome for the global economy," said Changyong Rhee, Secretary General of the Presidential Committee for the G-20 summit.

The second part of the agenda deals with development and strengthening global financial safety nets.

South Korea plans to differentiate its approach from international organizations by sharing its past experience of achieving rapid progress in its social and economic conditions.

Lim Won-hyuk, Director Korea Development Institute said: "In order to really make a dent in poverty, you have to have self-sustaining growth in developing countries. So instead of just emphasizing basic human needs, Korea will try to emphasize issues like infrastructure and human resource development."

The heads of state meeting of the group of 20 developed and emerging economies is scheduled to be held in Seoul on November 11 and 12.

This will be the fifth summit of the G-20, with the previous ones at Washington, London, Pittsburgh and Toronto.